Hong Kong: The Ngong Ping Cable Car and The Big Buddha

You can’t really go to Hong Kong without visiting the Big Buddha (Tian Tan Buddha), so more out of obligation than desire, Poul and I went to see the 34m tall concrete statue on Lantau Island. We took the metro and got off at Tung Chung station. Considering that Hong Kong is made up of a scattered collection of mountainous islands, it’s surprisingly easy to get around. You just get on the metro and *swooosh*- you’re transmogrified under water, over land, to a different island.

We thought we got there early, but the line for the Ngong Ping cable car station was already so long, we started considering purchasing the more expensive Crystal Cabin tickets, just to be able to use the VIP entrance. However, we figured that it wouldn’t be too long a wait as the cable cars were dropping people off and letting people in at quite a fast pace.

Though one thing we forgot to take into our considerations, when estimating the wait, was the fact that a substantial number of the other visitors that day refused to accept to wait their turn. There was a constant pushing and shoving, and you had to be on guard all the time or people would try to sneak in front of you.

A party of 5 split up, and mom + daughter no. 1 pretended they needed to go to the restrooms, but they never went. Instead, they just joined the line further upstream and after a few minutes, the rest of the family walked up to join them at their newfound place in the line.

In Denmark, even young children are taught to wait their turn, and if you try to skip the line, prepare to be shot at dawn (ok, maybe not, but people get very upset). Through the years, I’ve realized that so is not the case in a lot of other countries.

I know you have to adapt to local customs when you are visiting other countries, but this particular issue is very hard for me to adapt to. I could come up with 100 reasons, why I think people should wait their turn, but I’m sure the ones, who can’t see the point in waiting, when they can actually get away with bypassing the queue, also has a number of reasons to back up their stand.

Anyway, when we had around 50 persons in front of us, one of the Ngong Ping cable car guys suddenly yells something, which sounded like “We need two more persons for this car, who’s in?” and I raised my hand immediately. He sees me, and Poul and I are allowed to walk by everybody else, including the ones, who’ve been skipping the line earlier, and into the car. Ha! What a sweet revenge!

The ride with the cable car was beautiful and one of the absolute highlights of the trip. Even though it was cloudy and heavy raindrops started pouring down, the view was still spectacular and the ride so long that you had plenty of time to enjoy the view and take a lot of pictures.

After getting off the cable car, we walked through Ngong Ping Village, which is basically just a collection of shops and restaurants, and then we were at the stairs leading up to Big Buddha. The clouds were gone so it was a hot walk to the top and we were happy that we had bought a Starbucks iced latte for the road. The Buddha statue was quite a sight, but it was so crowded up there, that we didn’t stay for long.

Before we started our walk down, we even went by the souvenir shop. For a while, Poul and I have been talking about buying a Buddha in dark wood or maybe one of those golden Buddha paintings, but inside that souvenir shop, somehow it just felt wrong, turning religious symbols into home décor. I wouldn’t dream of putting up a Jesus painting in my living room (not even a golden one) as I’m not a Christian (I’m not religious at all), so why I even considered purchasing a Buddha painting in the first place, I don’t know, but I can tell you that the Buddha-plans have been irrevocably ditched by now.

On our way down, the wait for the cable car was much shorter and the haze was gone, so we had a beautiful view all the way. Gone were the memories of the struggles earlier that day, and as we disembarked the cable car, we were almost ready to line up again for one more ride, but we didn’t. In stead we hurried back to Tsim Sha Tsui to meet M for cocktails at Ozone (the bar on the 118th floor at the Ritz-Carlton) and Chinese hotpot at Budaoweng.

My Hong Kong Blog